Email Author J. Hoberman

Awards

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published October 13, 2009

  "Let the Mild Rumpus Start!"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 29, 2009

  "Robert Frank's Real America"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published February 4, 2009

  "Why Hard Times Won't Mean Good Times"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published June 12, 2008

  "Deep Freeze"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 18, 2008

  "What We Learned About the Election in this Summer's Movies"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published January 24, 2008

  "Kill One for the Gipper"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published December 5, 2006

  "Mel Gibson is Responsible for All the Wars in the World"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published May 16, 2006

  "The New Disaster Movie"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published March 14, 2006

  "Anarchy in the UK"

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2011 Stories by J. Hoberman

• "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo": Rooney Mara Takes Control

  published December 21, 2011

  Set in a freeze-your-blood land of streamlined chrome and steely dawns, David Fincher's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a malevolent remake... More >>

• "War Horse": WWI Gets the Spielberg Treatment

  published December 21, 2011

  It might be perverse to accuse a tearjerker as accomplished as Steven Spielberg of being unfeeling. But the overcalculation with which he... More >>

• "A Dangerous Method": Cronenberg Examines the Birth of Psychoanalysis

  published December 14, 2011

  David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method is at once a lucid movie of ideas, a compelling narrative, and a splendidly acted love story... More >>

• "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy": An Atmospheric Return to the Cold War

  published December 14, 2011

  John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the 1974 spy novel generally regarded as the writer's finest, is predicated on a... More >>

• The Life of the Mind

  published December 14, 2011

  David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method is at once a lucid movie of ideas, a compelling narrative, and a splendidly acted love story... More >>

• "Young Adult": Charlize Theron's Bitchy Former Prom Queen Is Forever Young

  published December 7, 2011

  Described as a "psychotic prom-queen bitch," the anti-heroine of Young Adult, directed by Jason Reitman from a Diablo Cody screenplay,... More >>

• "Shame": Body Horror Underlines Chronicle of Extreme Sex Addiction

  published November 30, 2011

  Steve McQueen's first two films both star Michael Fassbender, feature virtually interchangeable titles, and are nearly as grueling to watch as... More >>

• "The Descendants": Alexander Payne's Latest Is Surprisingly Predictable

  published November 16, 2011

  Why has it taken More >>

• "J. Edgar": Rich Script, Masterful Acting Weave Dense Historical Tale

  published November 9, 2011

  Clint Eastwood goes deep into Oliver Stone territory and emerges victorious with J. Edgar. Although hardly flawless, Eastwood's biopic... More >>

• "Le Havre": Utopian Vision of Refugees in France Is Sadly Illusory

  published November 9, 2011

  Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre is something of a comeback for the Finnish filmmaker. His warmhearted comedy of underdog working-class... More >>

• Not the End of the World - Yet

  published November 9, 2011

  The first thing you see in Lars von Trier's Melancholia is a close-up of Kirsten Dunst's face. Behind her, slow as molasses, birds... More >>

• "The Rum Diary": Giddy, High-Speed Tale Never Hits Full Velocity

  published November 2, 2011

  Written and directed by Bruce Robinson, The Rum Diary adapts a novel Hunter S. Thompson began in the early '60s and published, under... More >>

• "Martha Marcy May Marlene": Thriller Deftly Portrays Psychological Torment

  published October 26, 2011

  As taut and economical as its title is unwieldy, Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene is a deft, old-school psychological thriller.... More >>

• Flaming Past

  published October 5, 2011

  Tsui Hark's visually sumptuous Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is a strong comeback for the veteran Hong Kong... More >>

• Outsiders Look at U.S. Racism

  published September 21, 2011

  "The revolution will not be televised." So Gil Scott-Heron asserted in 1970, and so it was not — at least not on American TV. As demonstrated... More >>

• Dee Lightful, Mented

  published September 14, 2011

  Tsui Hark's visually sumptuous Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is a strong comeback for the veteran Hong Kong... More >>

• Self-Reflection in Low Light

  published September 7, 2011

  Romanian director Cristi Puiu's Aurora is a continuous search for meaning — a murder mystery, shot vérité-style,... More >>

• "Film Socialisme": Knotty, Difficult, and Perhaps Final Statement from Jean-Luc Goddard

  published August 31, 2011

  In the late '60s, when Jean-Luc Godard was at the acme of his influence, Manny Farber concluded an enthusiastic if grudging appreciation with a... More >>

• "The Future": Latest Flick from Miranda July, the Annoying High Priestess of Quirk

  published August 17, 2011

  Is there such thing as a sincerely calculated naïveté? Or, put another way, does Miranda July have any idea of how annoying she... More >>

• "The Arbor": True Story of Tragic Teenage Playwright Andrea Dunbar

  published August 17, 2011

  Precocious playwright Andrea Dunbar (1961-1990) spoke for the lumpen abused of her native Bradford, England. The Arbor, video artist... More >>

• "Amigo": John Sayles Creates an Intelligently Rip-Roaring War Movie

  published August 17, 2011

  John Sayles' Amigo aspires more to educate than entertain, but it's no less engrossing for that. Torn from the pages of history, if not... More >>

• "Point Blank": Rousing, Economical French Thriller Pulls No Punches

  published August 10, 2011

  Point Blank, a French action film that has nothing to do with the 1967 (and highly Frenchified) John Boorman flick of the same name,... More >>

• Love in the Middle of a Firefight

  published August 10, 2011

  Point Blank, a French action film that has nothing to do with the 1967 (and highly Frenchified) John Boorman flick of the same name,... More >>

• "Magic Trip": Doc Follows the '64 Adventures of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters

  published August 3, 2011

  The subject of Magic Trip is the LSD-powered, cross-country road movie orchestrated by novelist Ken Kesey in the summer of '64. More... More >>

• "World on a Wire": Newly Restored Fassbinder Sci-Fi Gem from 1973

  published July 27, 2011

  There are movies that make news and movies that are news. World on a Wire is one of the latter. A virtually unknown, newly restored,... More >>